Bills are a part of life. You know they are coming. You know you have to pay them, but it doesn't make it any less pleasant.

Bills are a huge chunk of your monthly budget, but you have more control over them than you might think.

Today I wanted to share with you how our family has been able to lower some of our bills and add more margin to our budget and decrease our spending by $1,500 a year.

1. We prepaid our electric bill. Our cooperatives allows us to prepay our electric services for the month and then track our usage on an app. We were able to forgo our initial deposit which saved us $200 up front.

The app allows to monitor our usage, pay our bill and see the times in the day when we are using (or wasting) electricity and adjust our usage to stay within our electric budget.

I know that not every electric service provider is going to offer this, but if you're in a co-op check and see if your company offers this program.

2. We mind peak hours. Most electric companies offer lower rates during certain hours of the day. It is a supply and demand situation.

Our power company charges more between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. This is the time during the day when the MOST people are consuming power. The power company pays more for electricity during this time and passes off that cost to the consumer.

I make sure to run the dishwasher, washing machine and dryer before and after peak hours. We end up saving about $2 per day this way. That is $60 a month!!

3. We cut our cellphone bill by $600 a year. We switched from Verizon to StraightTalk. We ended up with same phone plans for a fraction of the price.

Frugal Debt Free Life

Frugal Debt Free Life is a blog for those looking to get out of debt, stay out of debt, save money and live a more simplistic life style.

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